The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde | Book Review | December 2021

 I've finally read my most anticipated read! I've been fascinated by Oscar Wilde since reading some of his short stories and works in my crime module at university last year ('The Happy Prince' and 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'). The Picture of Dorian Gray was everything I needed and more. I love any novel that incorporates philosophy, and makes you think about what the other is trying to put forward through their literature. 

Beauty and Youth 

Wilde emphasises nature and landscape to depict the youth and beauty we see in Dorian Gray at the start of the novel. By using the character of Dorian to be the symbol of youth and ageing, Wilde also uses the physical art portrait as a mirror of Dorian's actions and secrets. The ability of art to show the reality of someone and the vulnerability of an individual. 

Throughout the novel, Dorian Gray doesn't age. His youthful vigour and radiance is highlighted throughout, but his antics don't reflect his innocent beauty. However, his good friend Basil Hallward was so fascinated by his beauty and charisma, he chose him to be the muse for his latest artistic masterpiece. It turned out to be quite the masterpiece. The portrait as the title of the novel suggests, it the centrepiece of the plot. It quite literally ruins Dorian's reputation and mirrors his true nature against the opinion of everyone thinking that he is the most innocent soul in London. 

Identity

Wilde focuses on identity the most part of the novel, as Dorian's identity changes transitions from the naivety towards life, to becoming more complex and in a word sociopathic. At the start of the novel, we come across Dorian through the lively and passionate conversation of Lord Henry and Basil Hallward. He is shown to be the most amazing individual: 'his personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style[...]unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek' (Wilde, 1891, p.13). He is the epitome of the modern man that Basil aspires to be. Basil wants to be charismatic and youthful, like he is. He wants to be admired like Dorian is. Instead, he encapsulates is admiration in to a portrait. 

The novel focuses on Dorian's reign as the most charismatic bachelor in the social realms of the upper class, and ultimately his downfall as a selfish and manipulative individual. Wilde conveys the message of how vanity can become toxic, as Dorian looks in to the portrait and sees the reality of his secrets and identity. At one point in the novel, Dorian falls in love with a lower class actress, Sybil Vane. He adores her and proclaims his love and wants to marry her. He's so proud of his actress lover that he invites his friends to admire her at a play she is performing. However, her acting that night is abysmal. This flaw makes Dorian despise his so-called love, he doesn't want his future wife to have any flaw whatsoever. Ultimately he breaks it off with her, leaving her heartbroken, and she kills herself due to those events. Dorian's toxicity therefore starts to affect other people and their lives. He becomes a regular in drug dens around London, and gossip starts about his effect on other men's lives and their downfall. When his individualism would once sparkle in the eyes of his acquaintances, his presence would now deaden the spirit in the room. His name was a darkened spot of society. 

Meeting his fate

After a lot of the events cause the death of many people, Dorian meets his fate very dramatically. But let us recall the many moments that lead up to this moment...

Firstly as mentioned before, his lover killed herself over his brutal actions and words. Yet, Dorian also becomes the primary murderer by killing Basil Hallward. The one who admires and trusts him the most, becomes the victim of his vanity and selfishiness. Basil told Dorian that he was to use his portrait in an exhibition in Paris. Seeing the full extent that the portrait portrays about Dorian's secrets etc, his anger builds up blaming Basil, and he ends up killing him next to the portrait. His hands turn more bloody and his face is more wretched as he goes on to kill. 

He acquires help from a scientist acquaintance. As soon as he tells him that there is a body upstairs and he needs him to dispose of it for him, he knows that he can't get away from him without being murdered himself. Dorian has become the master of manipulation and sociopathic tendencies. The scientist agrees to helping to dissolve the body, making Basil's corpse quite literally disappear in to the surroundings. The scientist later kills himself too from the traumatic event that was a part of. Dorian burns his clothes with no remorse. 

Dorian decides that the downfall of his personality and character was mainly focused on the portrait. So what can he do? DESTROY IT!  His post-traumatic stress disorder urged him to destroy the portrait that was reminding him of his dead best friend. The realistic ageing that Dorian has missed out on in portrait was reverse when he stabbed in to the heart of the portrait. Dorian's body becomes old and wretched, and he is found dead with the knife in him. He has met his fate at last. 

Social Class

Wilde also uses the social class divide to represent Victorian society. One of the most prolific issues that social class comes in to is that crime is a lower class phenomena: 'all crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is a crime. It is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder[...]Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders. I don't blame them in the smallest degree. I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations' (p.203). Wilde presents the class difference when it comes to culture and the 'way of life' or upper and lower classes. Lord Henry cannot empathise with the lower order, he just looks down at them as if to say its in their nature to be a criminal. The fact that people are so poor they may have to steal etc. to even survive doesn't come in to question when it comes to Lord Henry's analysis of crime. The ignorance of the upper class. 

The Portrait of Dorian Gray is the epitome of the Victorian era. All the themes of social class, identity, gender, cosmopolitanism and the downfall of individuals are all central to the novel. If you're a massive lover of Victorian novels, this novel will be the perfect fit to shock any mind reading it!

Happy Reading! 

Rose x